


Mental Disaster

by Wiseone11



Category: Original Work
Genre: F/F, POV First Person
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-14
Updated: 2021-03-14
Packaged: 2021-03-22 19:29:14
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,371
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/30043605
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Wiseone11/pseuds/Wiseone11
Summary: A character on the verge of burnout and a mental breakdown, struggles to write her essay that is due in a few hours.





	Mental Disaster

**Author's Note:**

> This story is told from First Person POV. At the moment this is just a one shot, I may decide to do a multi chapter story on this later and expand on how the character decides to face these problems. Enjoy!

The blinking cursor stares back at me as if mocking me as I try to find the words to write. I’ve been at this for almost five hours, it’s almost midnight and I still haven’t made any progress to the essay I have to turn in by nine. “Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Ark: The Difference Between the Rough Draft and the Final Cut.” The paper should be easy to write, I’ve seen the movie a thousand times and I read the rough draft of the script about fifty times by now, but still, I have nothing, zilch, nada. 

I don’t think the topic is the problem at this point. Graduation looms over me like a demon just waiting to attack. I can barely sleep at night anymore, if I do, I have nightmares. I am constantly breaking out in hives and I am on the verge of an anxiety attack. 

How am I going to pay off my college debt when I graduate? Will I even be able to get a job in the pandemic? I don’t have my parents to rely on for money if things go sideways. Father’s a deadbeat, mom is unable to get a job, and grandma is struggling ever since grandpa passed away. 

Why did I have to choose film as my major? 

I close my eyes as the feeling of a migraine begins to form.

I know why I chose film as a degree. It’s one of the few things I am decent at, besides photography and karate. But these days it doesn’t feel like I am even decent anymore. My classmates are amazing at film but me, I am struggling. I should have stuck with freelance photography, I was making decent money with it before I started college and moved eight hours away from my hometown. But no, I just had to get a degree, to be the first person in my family with a degree. 

Don’t get me wrong, I’m glad I moved away from the stifling life I had in my hometown. It was so… restrictive. I had to watch what I said or did because it was a small southern town and people love to talk. Especially about things they didn’t consider normal. 

But at least if I was there, I wouldn’t have the looming threat of debt. Instead, I would just have to practice keeping a consistent censor on myself. I wouldn’t have any privacy. And every time I walked out into public I would have to defend my hairstyle choice and wardrobe choices; and in worse cases, argue with women on my gender as I try to use the bathroom. Just because I have my hair cut short and I wear men’s clothes does automatically make me a man. Last I checked, I was born with female parts. If that even matters, which to me, it doesn’t but to some people that matters most.

God, and on top of all of my external problems I keep having this internal battle with myself. It sounds so trivial, compared to my other problems but it’s one of those things that makes my head go in circles. I think I am having feelings for the same sex. Scratch that. That makes it sound so… sterile. Like when you go to the doctor and they use the medical terms for things. Let’s try that again, I think I like girls. Nah, that’s too overused. I believe I am having feelings for the people who are female in gender. Ok, no that’s too clunky… But I think you get the gist of it. 

The thing is though, I have no one to talk to about these feelings with. The only people I actually speak to on a semi-daily basis are my best friend and my roommate. Neither which are homophobic but for reasons, I can’t speak with them about it. 

My family is out of the equation, my Mom is a raging homophobe, she can’t even watch a movie that has even a mention of an LGBTQ person in it. If she sees it, she will start making loud comments and gagging noises. I would hate to be in public with her if she ever sees a couple or even just someone from the LGBTQ community. I can only imagine the horror she would cause. It makes me sick to my stomach, what she might do. 

My grandma, on the other hand, is better than my mom but she still makes a comment here or there. It depends on the day. At least I know she wouldn’t dare make a loud comment in public. But still, I can’t tell her, even if she was the best no judgments kind of person; she still has a loudmouth, in terms, she loves to gossip. And people here are conservative, on a scale of one to ten, one being not so much and the other being up Jesus’s ass, they’re a ten, both on the Jesus part and the conservative part. 

For example, someone (a friend of the family) texted me a few months ago asking how my college is handling Covid, and I told them how we are having certain labs on campus with everything else being online. If we have on-campus labs we have a procedure where we have to have our temperature checked when we get to campus, and we have to follow the CDC guidelines, wear a mask, etc. They told me, “that sounds like communism.” 

What? I am pretty sure I glitched when they said that. Like what the… How? Of course, I quickly recovered and had to lie straight through my teeth, I agreed with them. In reality, I don’t agree, I’m glad my college has this procedure, if not, I wouldn’t be going to the lab because I’d be opting out of that shit so fast. 

You’re probably wondering why I agreed with them, even though I don’t. Well, let me tell you something, if I didn’t agree, I would probably lose all I ever knew because that shit travels so quickly. Like the only person, I can think of that I know, that doesn’t vote Republican is my roommate. Everyone else, family, friends, people I grew up with, vote Republican and they hate anyone who doesn’t agree with them. The family reunion we had this past year, was a shit show because Donald Trump lost the election. Thank God I had lectures that day, so I could bow out early. 

But I digress, lets get back on topic, this essay. It’s 2 am, I still haven’t got a word down and I have a migraine. Ok, first step, let’s see if we can curb this migraine a bit. 

I push my desk chair away from the desk and stand. My room is dark, the blinds on my windows are shut keeping the street lights out, the only light comes from my laptop. I walk slowly to the bathroom, careful not to bump into anything as my knee is still recovering from taking a nasty fall down the stairs the other day. 

“Shit,” I mutter as I walk into the bathroom. 

I am going to have to turn the lights on to get the medicine unless I want a repeat of last time. The decision is hard, turning on the light is going to make my migraine worse but if I don’t there is a chance I am going to dump half of the pills down the drain or on the floor. Either way, there is a chance of making the migraine worse. Might as well turn the light on then. I flip the light switch.

“Son of a bitch,” I say as I shut my eyes and feel my way towards the sink.

I open my eyes in a squint as I open the medicine cabinet. I take two pills, swallow them dry, and slam the medicine cabinet shut. Shutting my eyes again, I feel my way back to the light switch. The lights are off again and my eyes are open. The migraine still persists. I sit back down at my desk and stare at the blinking cursor. Time ticks away in the background.


End file.
